Downing Street is under pressure to publish its evidence in the collapsed China spy case after the Crown Prosecution Service denied having blocked its release.
Keir Starmer is likely to come under scrutiny at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday after the CPS said it was up to the government to release the evidence.
The government has faced mounting pressure over its handling of the collapsed trial of Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary researcher, and Christopher Berry, a teacher. Both men, who deny wrongdoing, had been accused of passing secrets to China, but charges against them were dropped last month.
The latest row came after sources within No 10 claimed Chris Wormald, the cabinet secretary, had gone to the CPS to discuss the publication of a witness statement central to the withdrawal of espionage charges against the two British men.
It was that witness statement by Matthew Collins, the deputy national security adviser, that the CPS deemed did not meet the threshold for proceeding with the trial of the two alleged spies because it did not show China posed a threat to national security at the time the alleged offences occurred.
Prosecutors concluded during their meeting with Wormald – the country’s most senior civil servant – that publishing the evidence outside of a courtroom would be “inappropriate”, senior sources said.
But a CPS spokesperson denied the government’s claims. “The statements were provided to us for the purpose of criminal proceedings which are now over,” they said. “The material contained in them is not ours, and it is a matter for the government, independently of the CPS, to consider whether or not to make that material public.”
The Liberal Democrats urged the government to now publish Collins’s witness statement.
Calum Miller, the party’s foreign affairs spokesperson, said: “If ministers have nothing to hide they have nothing to fear. Failure to come clean will just confirm people’s suspicions of a cover-up and that ministers are more worried about cosying up to China than protecting our national security.”
Starmer has heaped praise on Collins, amid accusations he was being thrown under the bus for providing the government’s evidence in the case.
Collins’s name was mentioned in the Commons by the security minister Dan Jarvis on Monday, sparking criticism from the Tories that the government was initiating a blame game.
According to a readout, Starmer told his cabinet on Tuesday Collins was a “highly respected securocrat” who made “every effort” to support the case in court.
“But of course, all of the evidence provided by him was based on the law at the time of the offence and the policy position of the government at the time of the offence,” the prime minister’s official spokesperson added.
The chief prosecutor for England and Wales, Stephen Parkinson, previously blamed the government for failing to provide evidence that would support the assertion that China represented a threat to national security.
Starmer has denied that the Labour government was responsible for the decision to drop the charges against Cash and Berry, and blamed the Conservatives’ approach to China in power.
